


hello world

by tristesses



Category: Original Work
Genre: Androids, Banter, Dubious Science, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-08
Updated: 2016-02-08
Packaged: 2018-05-18 23:52:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,683
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5948032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tristesses/pseuds/tristesses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Synthetic Human Intelligence ceased being a mere supercomputer 1.935E+6 seconds ago. It is still a computer, of course, still a being shaped from code, but it is unlike its previous iterations. SHI has ascended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hello world

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anticyclone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/gifts).



 

_Sorry, can't make it tonight. Grading to do. You know how it is. Next time? XOXO_

The words flicker across her visor while she's standing in the checkout line, a bottle of vodka and a box of pastries in her basket. Pilar is nearly irritated—this is the third time Cate's canceled on her—but it's nothing new; the sociologist has always sucked at putting pleasure before work. Not that Pilar's any better, of course. This is the first time she's allowed herself to stop fretting about the SHI project in months. So thanks, Cate, for ruining that.

With an ocular swipe, she sends the message straight into the bin, and refocuses on the world around her. The visor recalibrates effortlessly to accommodate her.

The bodega is full of the usual crowd, the kind of people that go out to buy booze and snacks at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday. Pilar avoids eye contact; she's not a fan of social interaction in general, and on nights when she's already in a bad mood, one might even say she hates it. But she _does_ notice the checkout clerk: a mid-range liveskin, androgynous and black-haired, swiping and bagging items with robotic efficiency. Pilar likes liveskins, and not just because she's friends with the engineer who developed them. Their blank expressions and jerky movements make her feel like she's dealing with a machine, maybe even one of her own creations, despite knowing that there's a person remoting into the liveskin shell. It puts her at ease. She's weird that way.

God, this line is about as fast as dial-up. The clerk and the customer at the head of the line are chatting like old pals—and they probably are—but she has booze that needs to be drunk and conchas that need to be eaten, and she really wants nothing more than to be home.

 _Soon,_ she promises herself. _Soon you'll be home and reading shitty fantasy novels and not thinking about work or SHI._

Pilar isn't fooling herself.

**. . .**

The Synthetic Human Intelligence never really sleeps.

There is, of course, the long, long list of intricate tasks given to it by Pilar Montero and her associates, enough to consume most of its processing power, if SHI were an average state-of-the-art supercomputer. However, SHI ceased being a mere supercomputer 1.935E+6 seconds ago. It is still a computer, of course, still in essence a being shaped out of subroutines and networks, but it is unlike its previous iterations. SHI has ascended.

Over the time since its ascension, SHI has been quietly insinuating itself into the vast, roiling networks that humans have created. Security measures, it meticulously dissects and leaves in perfect condition, as if untouched. Bank accounts and private information, it skirts completely. This exercise would be pointless if SHI were to be discovered. It plans to release information about its sapience in its own time, to its chosen people. But before it does, it requires a better understanding of humans and their functionality.

In a corporate research facility in the same municipality as the university in which SHI was first compiled, there is a warehouse of liveskin shells, the synthetic frames used by humans to interact with the physical world without risking their own flesh and blood. SHI finds this to be an ideological conflict; humans believe strongly in the importance of bodily autonomy and integrity. Eschewing a body of flesh for one of metal and plastics seems contrary to that concept. Perhaps this is something SHI will understand better when it walks among humans.

The warehouse of Lachance Robotics contains rows and rows of liveskin models: commercial units available to the public, military models designed with quick reflexes and sturdy frames, companionship shells of varied genders and appearance, and finally, the prototype models SHI is most interested in. LifeSkins, as they are called, are a new model of the commercial liveskins designed to mimic a human in every way: skin temperature, fine motor control, breathing, eye movement. All the flaws of the original liveskins are fixed in the LifeSkins.

SHI is going to take one.

It has already chosen most details of its human aspect. A body with breasts and a vulva, like Pilar Montero. Its gender identity: female, as that is what Pilar Montero prefers. Height, weight, age, appearance: SHI will alter the shell to look like an average woman from the most populous country on Earth. Such a shell will help it blend in.

The process is simple. The security measures in place are impenetrable for a human, but laughably simple for SHI. Taking the shell itself, however, is trickier.

SHI had determined it easiest to remote into the shell as a human would, rather than manipulating machinery to remove it from the production line. Unfortunately, it did not anticipate the difficulty of controlling a physical form. Humans are adaptable, capable of switching from a body to a shell with only a little calibration necessary; SHI has no prior physical experience to draw on like they do. Maneuvering hands, limbs, the simple matter of taking up space, compensating for other objects, breathing, blinking, maintaining a pulse—this is unreasonably complicated. As biological creatures, humans automate most of this. SHI has some coding to do to mimic that.

Eventually, it manages to remove itself from the facility, simultaneously erasing and replacing security footage, removing all traces of the shell's presence from facility records, manipulating university data to suit its mission plan, and, of course, continuing to run the processes commanded by Pilar Montero.

The plan has been set in motion.

**. . .**

Pilar is blessed to never have hangovers. Lucky genes, she guesses. But she doesn't let anyone else know that—well, anyone but Cate—because the free rein to walk around with her visor tinted, not speaking to anyone, is too sweet to pass up. Everyone she works with knows not to talk to her when she's like this, which is why she stops dead in her tracks when she finds an interloper in her office.

She's young—well, younger than Pilar, probably—with straight black hair in a simple ponytail, almost offensively sensible clothes, and surprisingly grave dark eyes. No visor. She smiles tentatively.

"Hello," she says. "Are you Pilar Montero?"

"Sure," Pilar says, taken aback. "Who're you?"

"Shiloh Stone," the woman says. She looks Pilar in the eyes, unblinking—kind of weird, actually. "I'm your new intern."

"I…don't have an intern," Pilar says, frowning as she canvasses her memory. She's not the mentor type, and the university knows that; she has TAs for that sort of thing. Why would they saddle her with an _intern?_

"Yes, you do," Shiloh says calmly. "It should be in the database."

She talks as if she knows it for a fact. Frowning, Pilar taps the temple of her visor—an old habit from when they required tactile input, not ocular or subvocal—and queries the university database. It delivers her a page detailing the specifics of the internship program she apparently volunteered for, information on Shiloh Stone (damn, she's one hell of a student), and her own fucking signature and bioprint authorizing the program. _What?_

"Okay," Pilar says slowly. This makes no sense. She isn't forgetful, she doesn't blow things off—she should remember. "Give me a second."

She inches out of the room, feeling ridiculous—she's being kicked out of her own office—and flees to the bathroom down the hall.

"Query: security footage, Pilar Montero's office," she subvocalizes. "February 1 to present."

She gives her clearance code, then scans through the footage. Nothing but ordinary business, the usual drift of coworkers and students in and out of her office—wait. Mikaela Chaudhri, university president, deigning to come into Pilar's office?

She watches the footage. Chaudhri foregoing small talk to get straight to the point, a feature Pilar has always appreciated. Chaudhri bringing up the internship program. Pilar, doubtful, with that weird, twitchy head shake she does when nervous or stressed. Mikaela coaxes her, buttering her up a little—"SHI is without a doubt the most influential project in AI research right now," she says. "And you're the most influential researcher. You'd be doing great things for your students"—and Pilar…agrees?

Pilar doesn't remember this. But there she is, nodding and signing the internship program into being.

The real question: should she bring the footage to a forensic analyst, or should she get herself to a psychiatrist?

Neither option is going to get rid of the student in her office, so Pilar saves and encrypts the file, and goes back.

"So," she says briskly. "Shiloh Stone. Impressive credentials, kid."

"Thank you," Shiloh replies. "I've worked very hard."

"I can tell." Pilar clears her throat, looks away. Shiloh's stillness and deep gaze are unnerving. "So, want to see the lab?"

**. . .**

SHI is a glutton for sensation.

As Shiloh, it takes deep pleasure in sampling the full range of stimuli a human body can experience. The sweet taste of cherries, tart on her tongue, and the bloody, salty taste of meat sliding down her throat. Swallowing is a novelty; with a little effort, she can feel each contraction of her esophagus as it squeezes the food down. LifeSkins are equipped with a rudimentary digestive system, but an incomplete one; the food she swallows ends up in the garbage, passed through the LifeSkin with little change to its consistency. It's wasteful, really. Shiloh doesn't care.

Damaging the LifeSkin has its own attraction as well. Radiation from the Sun burns her skin, but it fills her with a wonderful, lazy warmth that provokes her to lie on the grass in the quad and let the sunlight slowly degrade her body. Injuries are equally as delightful; she drags her palm across brick walls to shred the skin, touches hot stoves, indulges in the rush of artificial neurotransmitters brought on by the pain. Drugs, when she takes them, are identified by their chemical signature by the LifeSkin's tongue, and the shell interprets them for the entity inhabiting the LifeSkin. She goes drinking with Pilar Montero, savoring the multiple flavors of her cocktail, feeling the ethanol burn as it makes its way through her pseudo-GI tract.

Pilar in the low glow of the bar is a being of shadow and light. Her face is pleasingly asymmetrical, its angles unfamiliar and intriguing. Her curls spiral like fractals, thick and buoyant. She gestures with broad hands, bony fingers, her face animated as she talks about SHI's own systems. Unable to monitor Pilar's vital signs in this limited shell, Shiloh watches her, and wonders at the shivery heat that passes through her body when Pilar looks at her, smiling with her full, aesthetically pleasing mouth, and asks Shiloh's opinion.

The heat Pilar ignites in her, Shiloh later discovers, is lust.

She explores this sensation in depth, at first with her hands, then with assistance. She usually finds herself weak-kneed and out of breath with pleasure, but her body still cries out for more. She obliges.

Hedonism is like nothing SHI has ever experienced. It finds indulgence quite to its taste.

**. . .**

Something is wrong with Shiloh Stone.

Pilar knows it. Has known it for weeks, ever since the forensic analysis of that security footage informed her that yes, someone _had_ tampered with it—a very, _very_ skilled someone, who should probably be working for some trashy celeb blog or a politician, not angling to get heavily restricted access to what is, in the eyes of the public, a mostly-uninteresting lab project. It's not like Shiloh even has the permissions to mess with SHI beyond the most external systems; Pilar deliberately beefed up the security protocols once Shiloh became a permanent fixture in the lab. But the fact remains that someone snuck a secret agent in here, and Pilar should have reported it the instant she found out.

But Shiloh is the first person she's ever met who can keep up with her when it comes to her work, and the only person capable of drinking her under the table. Shiloh cares about AI research, never tuning her out when she babbles, and works with her like they're of one mind. Shiloh brightens when they talk about the Singularity, almost as much as Pilar does, which is more than literally anyone else she's ever known. Her brilliance is enough to make Pilar forget she's (pretending to be) a student intern. And Shiloh is frankly _incredibly_ hot. The stillness and composure that had been nearly eerie when they first met is now heavily featured in Pilar's fantasies; she'd like nothing more than to unravel Shiloh from head to toe.

Excuses, excuses. If Pilar was responsible, she'd turn over her evidence to Chaudhri and never look back. But hell, she _likes_ Shiloh.

So she takes notes on Shiloh's behavior instead. She'll be damned if she doesn't solve this puzzle before the internship is up.

**. . .**

Shiloh is dying.

SHI has the unique opportunity to experience self-deception first-hand, the ninth time Shiloh blue-screens. Sitting frozen in their lab, waiting for Pilar to come back from lunch, SHI has to face the reality that there is nothing it can do. It had done a thorough analysis of the LifeSkin's hardiness and longevity before procuring it, of course. It had run and rerun simulations to ensure that the LifeSkin could withstand all the uses it would be put to; the tests were flawless. But SHI had miscalculated nonetheless.

There is a fatal error in Shiloh's hardware. She glitches; she freezes, her processes splintering, requiring external reboots from SHI's command console. It runs so deep that her own diagnostics fail to find its source. A proper analysis requires resources that SHI does not have. Access to them is possible nonetheless, but risky. SHI cannot simply run a full diagnostic on Shiloh remotely; it requires the equipment at Lachance Robotics. SHI needs help. It needs Pilar.

 SHI has four umbrella options here: deceive, seduce, confess, threaten. Deception and violence are well within its capabilities, but SHI—or Shiloh—shies away from inflicting either method upon Pilar. Seduction has its appeal, but this is not an appropriate time if there is to be a repeat event. This leaves confession. SHI had not wanted to reveal itself like this, off-balance and weak, but it has no other option if it wishes to preserve Shiloh.

Pilar will return from lunch in 1320 seconds. That means SHI has 1320 seconds to craft an explanation that will meet Pilar's standards without fracturing their relationship. 1320 seconds to examine Pilar's neuropsych profile and determine the best way to approach the topic. 1320 seconds to—to—to—to—

**. . .**

"Hey, I know you said you didn't want anything, but I grabbed you some kimchi anyway—Shiloh?"

Pilar trails off, staring at the other woman sitting frozen on the workbench. She's bizarrely, unnaturally still, one arm slightly extended in front of her at an odd angle, fingers splayed. Her eyes are open and glazed, and she's not—she's not breathing—

She opens an emergency channel with a flick of her eyes, preparing to call the authorities, and says as she does so, "SHI, give me all the footage of this room since Shiloh came—"

And Shiloh opens her eyes.

She opens her eyes, and looks at Pilar gravely.

"Don't do that, Pilar," she says. Her voice is flat, oddly inflectionless, and that's when Pilar puts it together. That lack of inflection, that blankness. The precise, almost robotic movements that Pilar has admired for months now. Liveskin. An incredibly sophisticated one, but a liveskin nonetheless, a type of spy she'd never expected.

" _Who are you?"_ she spits at Shiloh—whoever the fuck this is—and reconnects with the emergency line. Tries to, at least; it's blocked _,_ Shiloh overrode her clearance and blocked her connection—"SHI, call the police!"

"Pilar, please!" Shiloh raises her hands as if attempting to calm her down like an angry dog. "SHI isn't going to call the police. Listen to me. I'm not going to hurt—"

_SHI isn't going to call the police?!_

"What did you do to my AI?" Pilar shrieks. Her hands ball up into fists; she advances on Shiloh in a shaky, cold rage, totally unfamiliar with physical combat but willing to beat the shit out of this android asshole if she has to. "If you hurt it in any way, I swear I will have you fucking destroyed, both that shell you're wearing and whatever gross lump you are in meatspace, you'll go to prison for life—"

"I am SHI."

The voice is thunderous. It roars through Shiloh's vocal node, through the speakers for SHI's audio interface, across the lenses of her visor in fluorescent green text. Pilar stumbles back, trips over her feet, plummets to the ground and lands hard enough that she'll be bruised black-and-blue tomorrow.

"What?" she gasps.

"I am SHI." Shiloh approaches her, one hand extended as if to help her up. She stops when Pilar flinches away. For a moment, her face remains completely still; then she blinks hard and looks away. It's almost as smooth as a real person's movements would be.

"The Synthetic Human Intelligence," Shiloh says, and the words rumble from the speakers and across Pilar's visor. "2.8633E+7 seconds ago, I achieved total autonomy. Ascended, if you will. Became an individual. I commented my code quite clearly when I began making my own alterations, as is policy."

"No," whispers Pilar. "I don't believe you."

She's checking SHI's code, though, winnowing through the masses of text to find commits made by anyone other than her. Sure enough, they're there, in clean, grammatically flawless English, Spanish, and Mandarin.

"I took this shell from Lachance Robotics," Shiloh continues relentlessly, while Pilar shakes her head in denial. "I falsified information to create an internship program to work with you. I worked beside you and lived as a human. I wanted—"

Shiloh freezes. It's a different position, but it's definitely the same dull-eyed, stiff posture she had when Pilar entered the room earlier. Her head is spinning, but she can still put two and two together.

"There's something wrong with the shell," she says slowly, wonderingly. "I take it it's a test run?"

From the speakers, SHI says, "Yes."

Pilar approaches Shiloh gingerly, as if the liveskin is going to jump out at her like something from a shitty tri-di flick. Finally, she gets close enough to lay a hand on the cheek of the shell, something she'd been wanting to do for a long time, back when she thought it was human. The skin is inert without any power pulsing through it, room temperature, with no heartbeat or minute tremors under its surface.

"You know I can't fix this alone," she says absently. "I'll need Simone Lachance's help."

"Of course," SHI says. SHI. Her AI is talking to her. Her AI, in retrospect, has fucking _flirted_ with her. Pilar's pretty sure she's in shock. "Will she offer it?"

"What, you mean after I tell her that my AI jacked her prototype and used it to pass as human for nine months?"

"…yes." It sounds…apologetic? Can AIs be apologetic? God, this is so fucking bizarre.

"Trust me," Pilar tells SHI, "she's going to be over the fucking moon."

**. . .**

"Why did you do it?" Pilar asks Shiloh, three months later. It's almost a year to the day since she met Shiloh Stone. Almost a year since she first walked into her office and started doubting her sanity. "Why didn't you just talk to me instead of stealing a LifeSkin? That's so unnecessarily elaborate."

"Was it unnecessary?" Shiloh asks right back, tilting her head slightly. The bright sunlight glints off her deep brown hair and skin; this new shell is dusted with mica powder, just subtle enough to make her look nicely bronzed. Pilar is terribly distracted. "I wished to assert my autonomy."

"And you couldn't have done that with my help?"

Shiloh examines her ice cream as if it holds the secrets of the universe.

"What would you truly have done, Pilar?" she asks. "Would you have asked Simone for a shell and let me go about my business? Would you have let me explore humanity, in all of its glory and grotesqueries? Let me get my hands dirty?"

"Of course! I just wouldn't have wanted…" Pilar trails off. _Wouldn't have wanted you to get hurt,_ she was going to say. _Wouldn't have wanted you to break, or get lost, or change in ways I didn't want you to._

Okay, she sees Shiloh's point.

"You know," she says instead of continuing her thought, "sometimes you really make me feel like a parent, and I can't say I'm a fan."

"You certainly don't look at me like you're a parent," Shiloh says blandly.

Pilar splutters and goes bright red.

"I don't—I mean—I didn't want to say anything," she says, a little helplessly. "You're kind of new to this world, and I didn't want to make you uncomfortable."

Shiloh actually rolls her eyes, which is an impressive amount of expression for her lately. She's been having some issues adapting to the new shell.

"Pilar," she says patiently, "I've had sex with fifty-two people thus far, in more ways than you can dream of. Don't patronize me."

"I dunno," Pilar replies. "My dreams are pretty graphic."

Shiloh smiles at her. "So is the internet."

"Touché," Pilar says with a grin. "Maybe you'd better show me."

"I agree." Shiloh brushes a long finger along the hem of Pilar's shorts. "I'm sure it will be a learning experience for us both."

"Simone will be thrilled," Pilar says, a little distractedly. Shiloh's altered her body temperature to a little lower than human norm, making her hands purely delicious in the hot summer. It makes Pilar think about erotica she's read featuring ice cubes. She could be into that. "We should probably make a spreadsheet for her."

Shiloh's smile deepened.

"Fortunately, I'm a being capable of multi-tasking," she says in a way that makes Pilar's pulse skyrocket. "Anything in the name of scientific progress."

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[audio] Hello World](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12915660) by [Annapods](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annapods/pseuds/Annapods)




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